Linaloo

It's beginning to smell a lot like Christmas....

I'm feeling in a festive mood so much earlier than usual this year. I wanted my house to smell like Christmas, so, in the spirit of Emma's Making Winter series, here's an easy recipe for a Christmas simmer pot which makes the whole house smell amazerful with just a few simple ingredients.

Mix of all the above ingredients with 2 cups of water and a cup of apple juice in a saucepan.  Gently simmer over a low heat for a few hours, making sure that the liquid doesn't evaporate. Once you're done, remove from the heat, let it cool and you can keep it in the refrigerator and re-use it again a few times. There really is no exact recipe, it's just trial and error...you could use cranberry juice, oranges, clementines,add a few sprigs of evergreen...whatever takes your fancy.

Rustic headboard

Our bedroom is a bit of an eclectic mish mash of furniture. I'm quite alright with that but I had been looking for a solid headboard for while but couldn't find anything to fit the bill for a reasonable price. Even lots of thrifting failed to yield something the right size. Finally this summer I asked my husband if he could make one for me and he agreed. Quite readily in fact. (If I sound surprised it's because I was, he's a pretty handy guy but also very busy at work these days).

So I showed him these fabulous detailed plans put together by Ana White, whose blog I have followed for the last year or so. $60 worth of lumber from the hardware store and a few hours of cutting, assembling and painting later - we had this:  
I love it!  I haven't mentioned it to him yet, but I'd quite like one of these next.

The doily duvet cover was of couse, made especially for me, by those lovely people at Ikea!

PS Worth mentioning that we ended up cutting about 5 inches off the legs as it was just too tall for the proportions of our room.

Practical making: a bedskirt

 
Not the sexiest title for a blog post, nor the most riveting of subjects for that matter, but I do love a bit of practical making.  It seems the homemaker in me is always slightly smug and pleased with herself when she's able to put her sewing skills to practical use. (Although this project barely counts as sewing, as it involved just 2 little seams).

Our old bedskirt ripped ages ago and I have have been on the hunt for a replacement for while.  I've had a hard time even finding something suitable and I couldn't bring myself to spend a small fortune on one.  I knew I could probably make one but the thought of the amount of time it would take for the tedious measuring and accurate assembly of something for the bottom of my bed put me off until I happened upon this simple solution here. With a little bit of measuring, cutting of a flat sheet that has never been used, some joining, hemming and saftey pinning to the box spring and hey presto!  A practial, cheap and easy fix in just over an hour!  Admittedly white is probably not the most practical colour and I will likely end up changing it for a natural linen shade eventually, but it's certainly better than seeing all the dust bunnies lurking underneath the bed! 
I am so easily pleased.

Today at the thrift store I bought:

 
a pretty blue sheet (no surprises) - $2.
sparkly shoes for my daughter (this is the first time I’ve bought shoes from a thrift store, but these look like they have barely been worn) - $6.

Not pictured:

sweat pants for my son (immaculate condition) -$4.
grey tunic for me (GAP) - $5.

The store I frequent is not the cheapest.  It’s my local Value Village (or the much more chic sounding Village de Valeur as it’s known in French) which, apart from a small percentage of their profits donated to local charities, is basically a for profit business.  People drop off their unwanted goods and VV simply sort it and sell it. It’s a pretty huge place and it’s easy to lose a few hours in there but it’s all very organized (which works well for me as I’m not really good at rifling through piles) and the clothes are arranged by type, size and then colour.  It always makes me smile that the racks look like rainbows.

Thrifty happiness :: I am the doily queen

 
Yesterday was my first day back at work since just before Christmas.  As a reward for getting through my Monday blues I promised myself a quick post work trip to the thrift store.  I picked up a milk glass vase (to add to my growing collection) straight away and then I circled and circled for a while just knowing that there was some little treasure waiting to be found. That's often the way I find when it comes to hunting down something special.

I had all but given up and was heading to the checkout when I saw these little coasters on the bottom of a shelf full of knick knacks.

 
 
Glass coasters covered with doilies, calling out my name, for a song.   A good start to the week I'd say.

Hooked

  
Of course one quick doily fix wasn't enough.  Once I’d broken into the doily stash, the temptation to use more was overwhelming and my resolve weak. I needed more, much more.  I needed a whole curtain of snowflake doilies to keep me satisfied.  A perfect, Martha inspired Christmas/winter project for these big patio doors in my kitchen where the sun streams through this time of year.
 
 
It’s quite magical and casts the prettiest shadows.
 
 
And what the heck, I even made a doily bowl too.

I'm in deep. Doilies anonymous anyone?

Note:  I stiffened my doilies with a homemade solution of 1 cup of Epsom salts (I paid $5.99CAD for a huge bag of salts at the pharmacy) dissolved in 1 cup of boiling water. I  soaked each doily thoroughly in the solution, patted off the excess with a towel and left them to dry overnight. The best thing about this little concoction is that it’s a temporary stiffener and completely washable outable.

No doilies?  You can buy your own DIY snowflake kit here:

More doily love here.

Doily addict

Along with vintage buttons and sheets,  I have amassed quite a sizeable collection of doilies through thrifting and swaps (thank you Imene!).  They’re prized possessions and only a few of them have actually ever been used.

Until now.

Claudia recently posted about this simple but perfect tutorial  which, when I read, made me drop everything I was doing and run for my doilies immediately. It was one of those mad multi tasking moments which involved a glue gun, surfing in the net, cooking dinner and helping children with homework all at the same time... it was just like a primal urge and I couldn’t stop myself from making them right there and then.

  

I can't tell you how pretty these looked last night on my mantlepiece.

If doilies were a drug then this little project was a perfect quick fix to feed my habit.

Twig vase

Inspired by this Nini Makes tutorial, I made this little vase earlier this year. We have lots of trees in our back garden and an endless supply of fallen twigs and branches, so this was a perfect green project with absolutely no purchase necessary.  My kind of crafting.

 
I have seen similar ideas using hot glue, but I prefer the idea of holding everything together with twine. 

I maybe getting a little ahead of myself here, but I'm thinking the children could make this pretty easily and they'd make wondeful gifts, embellished with some red ribbon and planted wih paperwhites for Christmas. 

Little things

    
 
"Enjoy the little things in life, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things" - Antonio Smith.

Feeling in a reflective mood here as the pool closes for summer this weekend and school starts on Monday. As I get older I realise more and more that its the simple things that make me happy and keep me grounded when life gets overwhelming.  It's for that reason that I have grown to love my macro lens so much, it's a chance to slow down and step back from the busyness of day to day living and remember that its the small, real details of life that count.

Have a happy weekend!

 

Thrifted sheet blah blah blah

Do you ever get bored of my thrifted sheet posts?  Sometimes I feel like a one trick pony with my "hey look what I turned an old sheet into this time" posts, but to be honest I simply never tire of them. This one was bought on yesterday from a new thrift store a friend took me to.  It was washed, dried and turned into a shirred sun dress for Ruby less than 12 hours later.  

I normally frequent just two reliable stores on a regular basis, and if there was any doubt in my mind about how much I have come to love thrifting, my heart was pounding with excitement and anticipation as soon as we arrived at the new place, confirming that I am indeed completely and utterly hooked.  
This dress is much like last year's (which has since been shortened into a top), based on this tutorial from House on Hill Road. It's perfect for slipping over a swimsuit after a visit to the pool.  Florence has also just posted a helpful (and very entertaining) shirring tutorial here.